SHRINK CHAT: Ted Bundy's Childhood, Midsommar & Hereditary

How does a three-year-old learn to arrange every knife in the house on a sleeping woman's pillow?

⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode includes discussion of child abuse, sexual abuse in a family, and films depicting suicide and sexual assault.

Late September 2021. The second half of Ted Bundy's childhood, then Midsommar, Creepshow, and a haunted farmhouse going for 1.2 million dollars.

TED BUNDY, PART TWO OF THE CHILDHOOD

Aunt Julia woke from a nap to find him standing over her, three years old, smiling, every knife from the kitchen drawer laid on her pillow with the points aimed at her face. The more frightened she got, the more he seemed to enjoy it.

Then the rest. Ann Rule, the crisis hotline where she worked beside him, and The Stranger Beside Me. A boy raised to believe his mother was his sister, who worked out by ten that he was living inside a lie. Louise leaving Philadelphia for Tacoma. Uncle Jack, the first decent man in the story. Johnnie Bundy, a hospital cook, and Ted's contempt for him.

Cathy on why the violent grandfather stayed the admired one and Johnnie, ordinary and kind, never stood a chance. Daniel Shaw on traumatic narcissism, and why one child in an abusive house identifies with the power while another disappears.

Then the part that earns the relisten. Shannon on what it takes to work with a rigid narcissist. You let them believe they are manipulating you, which younger therapists hear as placating and refuse to do. The difference is not that you have no ego, it is that you can set yours down and pick it back up. They cannot. Ted let Bill Hagmaier in for that reason. Johnnie Bundy was never a worthy adversary.

MIDSOMMAR AND HEREDITARY

Cathy finally watched Midsommar after years of putting it off and understands why she waited. Ari Aster, Florence Pugh, and a verdict a lot of people share: one of the most powerful films she has ever seen, and she will never sit through it again. Both hosts on which of the two sticks its ending.

THE REST OF THE WATCHES

The Shudder Elvira marathon: Elvira Mistress of the Dark, House on Haunted Hill, City of the Dead, Messiah of Evil.

Creepshow season three, episode one, and why pure fan service is not an insult. The Strange House, the Austrian haunted house film on Netflix. The Guilty with Jake Gyllenhaal. Halloween Wars.

BOOKS

The Whisper Man by Alex North, Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin ahead of the Shudder film, and The Final Girl Support Group ranked against Horrorstor and My Best Friend's Exorcism.

ALSO

The real Conjuring farmhouse is for sale in Burrillville, Rhode Island. Bathsheba Sherman, Ed and Lorraine Warren, fourteen rooms, 1.2 million. The Stranger Things season four teaser with Robert Englund as Victor Creel. Britney Spears' father files to end the conservatorship, and Cathy on competency when the person assessing it is the one being questioned. Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Halloween Horror Nights, and misdirection as the only jump scare that works.

Horror Facts with Cath: the 1990 Reese's commercial with Dracula, hypertrichosis, what repels a ghost, the blood deficiency mistaken for a vampire attack, and what Freddy Krueger was accused of.

HAUNTED STORY?

We asked for these in 2020 and we still want them. Record yourself telling it and send us the voice memo or just write it out. terrortalkpodcast@gmail.com

Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

🎧 LISTEN TO THE FULL PODCAST APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/terror-talk-true-crime-serial-killers-and-horror/id1435529687

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/07JEm5Qm7cohukkEUOYt7P

PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cw/terrortalk

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terrortalkpodcast/

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newterrortalkpodcast

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dark.psychology.girls?_r=18_t=ZT-99iWlxm05in

🎶 Music by Mannequin Uprising